This Is Not the Relationship I Ordered - The New York Times

For years, my husband told me, “You’re the love of my life. Nothing you do could ever make me leave you.” Then he met someone else, and it was over. As promised, it was nothing I had done. It had been the second marriage for both of us, and he had come with young daughters, a daunting prospect for me as someone who had grown up in a difficult family and sworn off having children of my own. But they soon joined their father in my heart. I brought my two cats, who had no experience with children. The girls tried to pet them, only to be rewarded with a claw impaled in a hand, then tears. Two years on, we moved to a new apartment in Brooklyn. The first night found the cats snuggled in the girls’ bunk beds. I finally relaxed. When the girls wanted a kitten of their own, my unease returned. At the local shelter, a place notorious for euthanizing animals soon after they arrived, my husband filled out paperwork while I accompanied the girls to the cat room. Immediately, their attention was dra

For years, my husband told me, “You’re the love of my life. Nothing you do could ever make me leave you.” Then he met someone else, and it was over. As promised, it was nothing I had done. It had been the second marriage for both of us, and he had come with young daughters, a daunting prospect for me as someone who had grown up in a difficult family and sworn off having children of my own. But they soon joined their father in my heart. I brought my two cats, who had no experience with children. The girls tried to pet them, only to be rewarded with a claw impaled in a hand, then tears. Two year